U.S. Men news & updates - 2013-14 season

It's time to start the news and updates thread for the new season! There already are threads dedicated to Max Aaron and Jason Brown/Joshua Farris, for example, in the Trash Can that are updated frequently with news (I've often cross-posted significant items here from those threads), and Lysacek has his own thread in GSD as well. Individual threads can and should be started in GSD for anything truly newsworthy. I also like to use this thread to post news and/or information about the less heralded men, including the junior international skaters.

I'll start things off by posting the links to, and program music/choreographers listed in, the updated Team USA bios of the team envelope and/or ISP skaters, along with any known international assignments at this time.

Alexander Johnson - bio not yet updated: http://web.icenetwork.com/skaters/detail.jsp?id=100072&mode=I
SP Music: Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" performed by Rodrigo y Gabriela
FS Music:"... is to a variety of film soundtracks, but has a very dark feeling to it. It opens briefly with the beginning of a remix of the "Nightmare On Elm Street" theme song and then goes immediately into two different waltzes. The ending piece is titled "Bernini's Angels". - Source link
Coach & Choreographers: Tom Dickson, Catarina Lindgren

Dornbush is very excited about his new free skate, to a Beatles medley. He says it's a "roller coaster," with several variations in tempo.

"It's very subtle in the beginning; people won't really know what the music is, and the further it goes, it becomes more and more clear that it's the Beatles," Dornbush said. "It starts slow and then speeds up through the footwork, and then there's a slow part to a John Lennon piece, and then the ending picks up again."

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So this is Ricky's planned layout:4t(possibly in combo, fell in this comp), 4s(doubled), 3a(doubled), 3s*(doubled), 3a+3t*(this combo by Ricky is just sublime), 3lz+seq+3s*(2s), 3f*, 3lo*
I love the music cut, The Beatles in orchestra! The program is just beautiful, really. (He looked tired though in this performance.)
Very looking good for the olympic season

Jason's Riverdance is, wow, unbelievable. His jumps aren't as impressive as his skating skills(it annoys a bit that he noticeably slows down right before the jumps), but still, he is a TALENT.

He can't skate Senior this season can he? He's only 12 that would be ridiculous no matter how talented he is.

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Not internationally. Skaters have always been able to skate Sr domestically in the US, but internationally he's not even JGP age-eligible. Must have been a decision by him and his coach(es) that skating at the Sr level in the US would somehow be beneficial. OR--for this particular competition he decided to "skate up" a level--which you are allowed to do for a non-qualifying competition. For a qualifying competition (regionals, sectionals) you *must* skate at your test level.

I don't know whether or not Vincent Zhou has tested up to Senior yet. He has competed Senior in 3 club competitions this summer that I know of. If he wants to continue receiving USFS envelope funding (he is in Team B for winning the Junior title this past season), he might be better off staying Junior another year (the current criteria states that 2nd-5th in Junior and 6th-7th in Senior receives Team C envelope funding). BTW, there was a thread about the TV commercial he filmed recently for his online school program - here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXqSR6l3BIg

In my first post I did say: "I also like to use this thread to post news and/or information about the less heralded men, including the junior international skaters."

So feel free to talk about Nathan Chen, if you wish! He scored well in winning the Junior event at Glacier Falls - 192.88 total, 129.41 FS. He will compete in the JGP in Mexico City in the first week of September with U.S. Novice men's champ Tomoki Hiwatashi, age 13. Jimmy Ma and Jordan Moeller will make their respective JGP debuts in Riga, Latvia, at the end of August.

Dornbush appears to be going no where fast since his high placement at US Nationals. His FS scores do not even approach those of Junior-level skaters in these competitions.

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Dornbush got the silver medal at Finlandia Trophy of last season with a total score over the two programs of 239.99 and 168.80 for the Free Skate. If I am not mistaken, no other US man has scored as high as him internationally in recent years. Also, Richard has beautiful skating skills, he moves fast and effortlessly over the ice. Maybe a new/different training environment is what Dornbush would need at this point in his career?

Dornbush appears to be going no where fast since his high placement at US Nationals. His FS scores do not even approach those of Junior-level skaters in these competitions.
He should buy lots and LOTS and LOTS of towels and start tossing them in .... his significant career peaks have past and he is no where near the quality of the elite skaters in the world at this time.

He seems destined for figure skating OBSCURITY .....

In 2017, people will say, "who was that? Dornbush? Oh I barely remember him when the US judges placed him second in January 2012.... he never did anything after that ......"

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Richard had so many errors in Glaciers, doubling like 4 jumping passes and falling on 4 toe.

Did you fotget how he skated his sp at last season's 4cc? And Finlandia Trophy?

The thing about Dornbush is that although he has great scoring potential, he only delivers once a season (if that). I think if it were up to me I would think long and hard about sending him to Sochi even if he places top 2 at Nationals. They are many more up and comers who have nearly the same potential but are much more consistent.

I would be surprised if the team is not picked from Lysacek, Aaron and Abbott. I personally prefer Aaron to make the team simply because I don't think the team should just comprise of veterans.

Miner, Rippon, Farris, Brown and Dornbush should really be aiming at 4CCs spots and perhaps the one world spot when Lysacek / Abbott retire right after Sochi.

Brown's Riverdance is wonderful and exceeds Chan's level of program complexity. I feel tired just watching it. Loving every second of it. Hope he makes 4CCs.

Given that the last Skating magazine printed version (which lists all gold tests passed - it's U.S. Figure Skating's official publication) didn't include this, I imagine he passed his Gold test sometime in the past 2-2.5 months.

Much love to Evan, considering he's my favorite skater, but I wish he would borrow the dresses from Ashley. At least then they'd be pretty. (Or as I said when he won Olympic gold, "on the downside, my favorite skater will now be immortalized forever wearing a fake bedazzled snake on his shoulder.")

Much love to Evan, considering he's my favorite skater, but I wish he would borrow the dresses from Ashley. At least then they'd be pretty. (Or as I said when he won Olympic gold, "on the downside, my favorite skater will now be immortalized forever wearing a fake bedazzled snake on his shoulder.")

Must be so inspiring for Grant to be able to study with one of his all-time biggest idols. So happy for him to be having a strong start to his season. Quad-triple in the short Helps push everyone along to step up their game.

When Hochstein's FS music was playing, I kept wanting to see Michelle skate, not him (in particular during the first and last Rachmaninov pieces). Like Dave Lease said, the risk in using music that has already been used is that you don't want to be wishing you were seeing someone else skate.